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Article Accepted for Publication in the Journal of Contemporary History 1 Peter Pirker British Subversive Politics Towards Austr Article accepted for publication in the Journal of Contemporary History Peter Pirker British Subversive Politics towards Austria and Partisan Resistance in the Austrian- Slovene Borderland, 1938-1945 Surveying current literature on anti-Nazi resistance within the Third Reich highlights a remarkable omission. The only organised armed resistance within the borders of Nazi Germany—that conducted by Slovene partisans in what was then the Gau of Carinthia (Gau Kärnten)—is mentioned only incidentally or ignored altogether. Yet for three years in this southernmost part of the Reich from 1942 to 1945, the Slovene Liberation Front (Osvobodilna fronta, OF) put up political, civil and military resistance to Nazi rule. At its height in the summer of 1944, approximately 900 armed resistance fighters were organised in two battalions based in the Karawanken mountain range extending to the outskirts of the Gauhauptstadt Klagenfurt. In August 1944, in addition to violent skirmishes with local police and military forces, the partisan forces inflicted in the so- called Battle of Črna na Koroškem (Schwarzenbach) what was presumably the only military defeat inflicted on Wehrmacht and SS units by partisans within the borders of the Third Reich. It is therefore surprising to see that Handbuch zum Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus und Faschismus in Europa 1933/39 bis 1945, the 2011 collection of essays published by Gerd R. Ueberschär, contains scant reference to Carinthian partisan units. And there is absolutely no mention of them in his introductory survey 1 Article accepted for publication in the Journal of Contemporary History Deutsches Reich: Gegner des Nationalsozialismus im ‘Dritten Reich’ 1933-1945.1 This could be excused if more detailed information were presented in the subsequent article about Austria, but there is only a single sentence: ‘Slovene partisan units formed above all in Southern Carinthia, where they worked closely together with Titoist partisans and were the only organisation active on Austrian territory that made a substantial military contribution to that country’s liberation.’2 The article on Slovenia is also a disappointment.3 It seems that the partisan struggle in Gau Kärnten does not fit into the postwar nation-state paradigm of historical research on resistance about National Socialism. 1 G. Ueberschär, ‘Deutsches Reich: Gegner des Nationalsozialismus im „Dritten Reich“ 1933-1945’, in G. Ueberschär (ed.) Handbuch zum Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus und Faschismus in Europa 1933-1945 (Berlin-New York 2011), 3-20. In Austria, interest in the history of the resistance Slovenes put up in Southern Carinthia has increased only in the last 15 years. This was primarily an outgrowth of the publication of a series of memoirs by former partisans—above all, L. Kolenik’s Für das Leben gegen den Tod. Mein Weg in den Widerstand (Klagenfurt/Celovec 2001). Still, the only general study of partisan warfare in Carinthia published by an Austrian historian is J. Rausch, ‘Der Partisanenkampf in Kärnten im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe, 39/40 (1979). For biographical information on fallen partisans and reprisals see: B. Entner, Wer war Klara aus Šentlipš/St. Philippen? Kärntner Slowenen und Sloweninnen als Opfer der NS-Verfolgung. Ein Gedenkbuch (Klagenfurt- Wien/Celovec-Dunaj 2014); Lisa Rettl et al. (eds) Peršman (Göttingen 2014). For research in Slovenia mainly based on Yugoslav sources see: M. Linasi, Koroški Partizani. Protonacistični odpor na dvojezičnem Koroškem v okviru slovenske Osvobodilne fronte (Celovec 2010). A German-language version was published in 2013: M. Linasi, Die Kärntner Partisanen. Der antifaschistische Widerstand im zweisprachigen Kärnten unter Berücksichtigung des slowenischen und jugoslawischen Widerstandes (Klagenfurt–Celovec 2013).The appearance of a novel focused greater attention on the struggle by Carinthian Slovene partisans: M. Haderlap, Engel des Vergessens (Göttingen 2011). The novel was subsequently translated into several languages. 2 W. Neugebauer, ‘Österreich: Gegen den Nationalsozialismus 1938-1945’, in Ueberschär, Handbuch, 31–42. In his recent monograph on resistance in Austria, Neugebauer portrays the Carinthian partisans as well as their transnational cooperation in more detail, W. Neugebauer, The Austrian Resistance (Vienna 2014). 3 S. Rutar, ‘Besetztes jugoslawisches Gebiet Slowenien’, in Ueberschär, Handbuch, 269–80. 2 Article accepted for publication in the Journal of Contemporary History The difficulties of integrating the Slovene resistance in Carinthia into a postwar national framework can be seen as an echo of the complicated social and political situation in the Austrian-Slovene borderland. Many of the guerilla fighters were Carinthian Slovene farmers who had been Austrian citizens prior to the Anschluss in March 1938. After the Anschluss they were regarded as German citizens and were drafted into the Wehrmacht. However, many young Slovene soldiers escaped to the mountains and to Slovenia before their conscription or deserted from the Wehrmacht and helped to form the first partisan groups in the Karawanken mountains.4 For local German radicals, the Nazi state had offered new opportunities in Carinthia, and the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 extended their activities south to Slovenia (Upper Carniola). Thus the partisans were not only battling National Socialism; they were also fighting for the incorporation of ‘Slovene Carinthia’ into a reconstructed Slovene nation state, which would also bring a revolutionary realignment of pre-war society with its structure of unequal land ownership. This at least was the agenda of the political leadership. But for many rank-and-file partisans, many of whom came from a traditional Catholic milieu, this was simply a struggle for survival—theirs and their families’—that could be waged most effectively by joining forces with the OF.5 However, any neglect in historical 4 In the most detailed military historical study conducted to date, Slovenian historian Marjan Linasi asserted that approximately 1000 Carinthians living in the bilingual region were engaged in partisan warfare. Linasi, Kärntner Partisanen, 390. 5 B. Entner, ‘How Feminine is the Resistance? Male and Female Carinthian Slovenes Fighting against the NS-Regime’, in A. Baumgartner et al. (eds) Who resisted? Biographies of Resistance Fighters from entire 3 Article accepted for publication in the Journal of Contemporary History accounts of resistance within Nazi Germany is in stark contrast to the significance attributed by the Allies in 1944 to the resistance these Carinthian partisans were putting up. In that year, Great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union provided support for the resistance struggle in the Karawanken mountain range and attempted to use it to advance their own individual—and partially conflicting—geopolitical aims in Central Europe, especially in Austria. In late 1943 on the southeast border of the Third Reich, the British military intelligence agency, Special Operations Executive (SOE), launched its Mission Clowder, one of the largest wartime efforts by a Western intelligence agency to infiltrate Nazi Germany via Austria.6 There ensued similar operations by the Europe in the Mauthausen Camp and Lectures from the International Conference 2008 (Vienna 2008), 375–83, 378. 6 In contrast to German historiography on anti-Nazi resistance, Anglo-American scholars showed more interest in the resistance put up by Carinthian Slovenes: See, e.g., T. M. Barker, Social Revolutionaries and Secret Agents. The Carinthian Slovene Partisans and Britain’s Special Operations Executive, 1940- 1946 (Boulder 1990); T. M. Barker, ‘Partisan Warfare in the Bilingual Region of Carinthia’, Slovene Studies, 11, 1-2 (1989), 193–210; W. Deakin, ‘Britanci, Jugoslovani in Avstrija’, Zgodovinski časopis, 33, 1 (1979), 102–26. Discussions among British and Yugoslav historians (first and foremost Dušan Biber) evolved from several conferences and round tables between 1975 and 1986. See: D. Biber, ‘Okrogli mizi Jugoslavanskih in Britanskih zgodovinarjev v Londonu 1976 in v Kuparih 1978’, Zgodovinski časopis, 33, 1 (1979), 161–86; D. Biber, ‘Yugoslav and British Policy towards the Carinthian Question, 1941-5’, in R. B. Pynsent (ed.) The Phoney Peace. Power and Culture in Central Europe 1945-49 (London 2000), 100–12 (originally published in Zgodovinski časopis, 33, 1 (1979), 127– 43); W. Deakin et al. (eds), British Policy and Military Strategy in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe in 1944 (London 1988); D. Biber, ‘Konec druge svetovne vojne v Jugoslaviji (The End of the Second World War in Yugoslavia). Proceedings of the Fourth Round Table of Yugoslav and British Historians, December 9-11, 1985 Brdo, Slovenia’, Borec, 38, 12 (1986), 625–884; R. Knight, ‘Ethnicity and Identity in the Cold War: The Carinthian Border Dispute, 1945-1946’, International History Review, 22, 2 (2000), 274–303; R. Knight, ‘Life after SOE. Peter Wilkinson’s journey from the Clowder Mission to Waldheim’ Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies, 1 (2009), 71–83; R. Knight, ‘A no-win situation? Gerald Sharp and British policy towards the Carinthian Slovenes’, in B. Entner and A. Malle (eds) Widerstand gegen Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus im Alpen-Adria-Raum/Odpor proti fasizmu in nacizmu v alpsko-jadranskem prostoru (Klagenfurt/Celovec 2010), 84–96. 4 Article accepted for publication in the Journal of Contemporary History USA’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and by the Soviet
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